23/24 Punt Steals Guides
This is another punting guide that is worth a read, even if you have another strategy in mind. Not because it’s a strategy that a large chunk of your league is going to use like punt FG%, but because this is a strategy that works well not only as a primary strategy but as a mid-draft pivot. Having a backup strategy that you can pivot to is very important, as you can never predict with 100 percent accuracy how a draft is going to go. Even if you’ve been drafting with the same group of friends for a decade, you are still going to get some surprises early, and sometimes all it takes to destroy Plan A and Plan B is an unfortunately timed reach from an opponent. If you have a strong pivot strategy in place, then you’ll be fine. If you don’t, then you’re going to be on tilt two or three rounds in, and that never ends well. Punting steals works great as a mid-round pivot because you don’t have to commit to the strategy early on. You are never going to come out of the fourth round drawing dead in steals. It’s not the easiest category to find during the second half of the draft, but there isn’t any combination of early-round players that prevents you from getting back to at least average in the category. It also works as a nice mid-season pivot. A lot of high-steals players do not produce well-rounded lines and dropping or trading them mid-season can lead to significant gains elsewhere. I saved my season in one of my main leagues last year doing just that. My Steph Curry-led punt assists team was struggling early on, and I realized that I needed to improve almost across the board. I took a good look at my team and figured out that some of my high-steals players were making it tough for me to win the categories I needed to win consistently. Once I swapped strategies and swapped out those players, the team started winning consistently and eventually rolled through the playoffs. Punting steals isn’t the sexiest strategy in the world, but it will lead to championship-level teams when done right.
2023-2024 Punt Steals Guide (Yahoo)
2023-2024 Punt Steals Guide (ESPN)
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